


I tell you life is sweet

by rsadelle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 16:11:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: Molly and Sherlock, building a life.





	I tell you life is sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Natalie Merchant's "Life Is Sweet."

**Aftermath**

Sherlock appeared next to her like he'd been waiting for her to leave Barts. "Come to John's."

Molly's shoulders slumped. "Sherlock, it's been a long day. I just want to go home."

"Mycroft's people are removing cameras from your flat."

Molly looked up at him, her eyes going wide. "Cameras? Who-"

"Not me," Sherlock said. "Obviously. Come to John's. I'll explain."

She probably couldn't go home then. Sherlock was already hailing a cab, like he knew she was going to go with him.

They didn't talk in the cab. Sherlock was focused on his mobile the whole time, so Molly watched London pass by the window.

"John," Sherlock called when he opened the door to John's. "Tea."

"Yes," John called back, "I'd love a cup." Then he came out from the front room and saw Molly. "Oh, Molly." He looked back and forth between Molly and Sherlock. "Tea?"

Molly managed a tremulous smile. "Yes, please."

John disappeared into the kitchen. Molly followed Sherlock's lead in hanging up her coat and going to the front room.

Molly sat on one corner of the sofa.

Sherlock sat across from her, fingers steepled.

"Who put cameras in my flat?"

"Tea first," Sherlock said, and then he stared at her silently until John brought in a tea tray.

John looked back and forth between them, and put the tray on the coffee table. "Tea."

Molly smiled at him. She could feel it shake. "Thank you."

"Thank you, John," Sherlock said. "Molly and I must speak now."

John visibly restrained himself from sighing as he left the room.

Sherlock poured the tea, and made her cup exactly the way she liked it. She sipped at it, and then put it down.

"Who put cameras in my flat?"

"My sister."

That wasn't anything like what Molly had expected. "Your sister? I didn't know you had a sister."

"Neither did I," Sherlock said. "Mycroft made me forget."

Then he told her a story, about a sister who had killed his first best friend, befriended Moriarty, and made him make the phone call she couldn't forget. He told her all the way through to the end, and then he folded his hands over his knee.

"I hurt you," he said then. "She said she wouldn't have killed you, that she wanted to see what it was like for me to hurt someone I," he paused, "cared about, who cared about me. She wanted to see what it was like for you to be hurt by me."

Molly was glad she'd put her cup down. "So you didn't mean it. What you said." She blinked hard, which didn't do anything to stop the tears gathering in her eyes.

Sherlock was quiet for what seemed like a very long time. "I did," he said. "I didn't know how much I did until I said it. I should like to spend time with you."

She gaped at him in astonishment. She gathered herself together enough to ask what he meant. "Because I'm your friend or because you want to go on a date?" It sounded ridiculous, Sherlock dating. But there had been that woman from the papers.

"A date." He held up a hand. "You should know that there is someone else."

"Oh." Of course there was. "Right. You love John."

Sherlock frowned at her. "Of course I love John." Then he said, "Oh, no, not like that. I didn't mean John. Nothing like John."

It was Molly's turn to frown. Someone other than John. "A woman?"

"A woman," he said. "The Woman. I text her back. Sometimes." It was said softly, like a confession.

"Oh." Molly wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. "Do you ever see her?"

"No," he said. "It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that I might see her again, but it is unlikely."

Molly opened her mouth, then closed it again. She picked up her tea - nearly cold now - and sipped it while she thought what else she wanted to know. "Did you have sex with her?"

"Once."

"Oh." Molly fiddled with her teacup. "Do you want to have sex with me?"

"I don't know," Sherlock admitted slowly. "I believe the point of dating" - she could almost hear the inverted commas around the word - "is to determine the answer to that question."

"Right, okay," Molly said, too fast, too nervous. "You really want to, to, to go on a date with me?"

"Yes." Sherlock stood. "Dinner?"

It took Molly a moment to catch up with him. "Now?"

"Yes, now." Sherlock shrugged on his coat and tossed hers at her. "Mycroft's people will be done with your flat by then."

"Oh, all right." Molly put on her coat and preceded Sherlock out of the house.

There was a cab waiting for them, and it dropped them in front of a small Italian restaurant. Sherlock held the door for her. She smiled up at him, a little nervous. Strange, to have Sherlock behaving like that.

"Sherlock!" A booming man greeted Sherlock like a long-lost brother with a giant hug and kisses to each cheek.

"Hello Angelo." Sherlock wasn't as effusive as Angelo, but there was a pleased smile on his face, and he gestured Molly forward. "This is Molly."

Angelo grasped Molly's hand between both of his. "It's always so good to meet Sherlock's friends. Come, sit down. I'll get a candle."

He deposited them at a table in front of the window.

"You're friends?" Molly asked Sherlock.

"Mmm. Of a sort."

"Sherlock saved me from a jail sentence," Angelo said definitively as he set a lit candle and a pair of menus on the table between them.

"Angelo was accused of murder," Sherlock said, "but he was committing a non-lethal crime elsewhere at the time." He tilted his head up to look at Angelo. "Molly did the postmortem on the victim."

Angelo beamed at both of them. "Anything you want, on the house." He patted the menus and walked away.

Molly picked up a menu. "Did I really do the postmortem on his case?"

Sherlock frowned at her. "Yes, of course." He tapped her menu. "You'll want the pasta primavera."

Molly looked down at the menu and up at Sherlock. She could choose something else. She put the menu down on top of Sherlock's.

Sherlock looked at her, just looked at her.

First dates were awkward enough when you were trying to get to know someone. Turned out they were still awkward with someone who could tell everything about you. Molly cast about for something to say.

"How did you solve Angelo's case?"

Sherlock launched into the story, only barely pausing to order their food and a bottle of wine.

He paused when he described the body. "You don't remember that?"

Molly shrugged a little. "I see a lot of bodies. Lots of violent deaths too."

"Yes, I suppose you do." Sherlock was quiet for a few seconds, just looking at her again, before he picked up the story where he'd left off.

The pasta primavera was very good, and the wine Sherlock chose went well with it.

"You're uncomfortable," Sherlock observed.

"No," Molly protested automatically, before she remembered who she was with. "Yes. It's a bit mad, isn't it? Us, dating?"

"Why should it be? We are friends. We," there was the slightest pause, "care for each other. We are determining if there can be more to our relationship than that."

"No, I don't know." Molly shook her head, and then she looked directly at him. "It's just that you can _look_ at me and already know everything. And I don't-" She firmed up her shoulders. "I don't know why you, you feel that way about me."

"You see me," Sherlock said with long pauses between the words. "And it's not that you don't matter, because you do. You matter," another pause, "very much. I trust you to let you see me."

Molly blinked against a hot rush of tears.

Sherlock looked alarmed. "What's wrong? That was supposed to be a positive comment."

"Oh, Sherlock." There was probably a tissue in her bag, but Molly accepted the handkerchief he held out to her and used it to wipe her eyes. "It was. It was lovely."

"Then why are you crying?"

Molly shrugged a little. "I don't know. Because sometimes people cry when you say nice things. And it's been a lot to take in today. This, and everything you told me earlier." She wiped her eyes again. "Tears that come from emotions are chemically different from tears in response to irritants or general lubrication."

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Posited to be the reason for the emotional release people feel after crying." He looked intently at her. "Do you feel an emotional release?"

Molly finished drying her eyes and chuckled a little bit. "Not an experiment, Sherlock."

"Not an experiment," he said crisply. "This is how people get to know each other, isn't it?"

Molly nodded. "I suppose, yes. It is a bit like an experiment, isn't it?"

"Often without the hypothesis," Sherlock said. "You didn't answer the question."

"Oh." Molly considered it for a moment. She didn't feel like she was going to cry again, and she did feel calmer. "Yes."

Sherlock looked at her with an intent frown for a moment before he nodded.

Sherlock paid for dinner. Then he walked her outside, hailed a cab that he got into with her, and gave the driver her address. He walked her to her door and clearly waited for her to unlock it.

"Oh," she said uncertainly. "Are you coming in?"

"Yes."

Sherlock followed her into the flat and turned around in place before walking over to examine her sofa.

"You've been here before," Molly reminded him. And seen it on the cameras, she thought after she said that.

"Good," he said, in a way that didn't sound like an answer to that at all. "Mycroft's people didn't replace the cameras with any of their own."

"Was that likely?"

"Possible," Sherlock said. "There are cameras in the corridor, and extra CCTV outside." He stopped prodding at her flat and came to stand in front of her. He wrapped his hands around her biceps. "You'll be safe."

He looked very determined.

They were dating, or on a date, anyway, so Molly shrugged her way out of his grip and put her arms around him in a tentative hug instead.

There was a brief moment where he was still, but then he hugged her back.

She wasn't quite teary-eyed, but she could feel that it might be a possibility. Sherlock had to know that, because he pulled back and looked at her for a very long moment.

Then he cupped her face, his hands very gentle and just a little cool. He bent down and kissed her. That was gentle too, and a bit tentative, like he wasn't sure about what he was doing.

Molly caught up with what was happening and put some effort into kissing him back. It wasn't a real snog, more like a long, close-mouthed, good-night kiss with more tenderness than she would have expected from Sherlock.

He pulled back. When he looked at her, it was less like he was studying her and more like he was just there with her.

"Goodnight, Molly."

Molly tried a smile. "Goodnight." She managed to also get out, "Thank you for dinner," before he and his coat swirled out the door.

 

**Sex**

Molly had been making herself a cup of tea, but she came out of the kitchen as John and Sherlock tumbled into the Baker Street flat.

They were both grinning, Sherlock with more energy than John, who looked a bit tired.

"Did you solve the case, then?"

"Yes, obviously," Sherlock said.

John nodded. "He did. Rosie?"

"Oh, she was fine," Molly said. "She's sleeping upstairs."

"Right," John said, and didn't go up the stairs right away.

"Yes," Sherlock said.

John tilted his head. "Sorry?"

"You were going to ask if you could stay since Rosie is already asleep and you don't want to risk waking her up," Sherlock said. "Mrs. Hudson changed the sheets upstairs recently. I could tell you when, but you might find it disconcerting."

John grinned, almost too quick to be seen. "Right. Good night, then. Night, Molly. Thanks."

"Any time," Molly said, "you know that."

John went up the stairs, and Sherlock paced around the sitting room.

"How was the case?" Molly asked.

Sherlock's face brightened. "Brilliant. I love the clever ones." He looked so happy, and gorgeous, of course.

Molly walked over to him and pulled him down to kiss him.

"Oh," he said after. "What was that for?"

Molly shrugged. "I dunno. It's what people do, isn't it? I mean, you came home and I'm glad to see you, so." She shrugged again.

"Oh," Sherlock said. "Yes, I suppose so." There was an odd look on his face. Then he bent down and kissed her again, and it was lovely.

Molly put her arms around him, and he was kissing her and it was a bit like they'd been doing for the last few months, and then his arms were around her and it was more like a proper snog, and then she was breathless and tingly and Sherlock was pressed all against her.

"I think," he said, drawing back a bit, "I should like to have sex."

Molly blinked at him. She hadn't expected that. They hadn't really talked about it, after the time she asked about the woman he sometimes texted. "All right."

There was something shifty about Sherlock, so she just waited.

"I'm not sure," he said uncertainly, "what you," a pause, "like."

"You can't just tell?" Usually he knew everything just looking at her.

"My knowledge base in this area is limited."

It took a moment for Molly to figure out that he meant he didn't have much experience with sex. "Oh. So just the once with The Woman," she could feel herself putting the capitals on it the way he did, "and the woman from the papers."

"Janine," Sherlock said, "for a case. And you're unlike The Woman."

Molly didn't try to figure out what he meant by that. She probably didn't want to know. "And there was no one else?"

"No." Sherlock looked unhappy at saying it.

"Well, I don't know what you like either," Molly said. "We can learn together."

Sherlock still looked put out by the whole thing, although they were pressed so close together that she could feel that his body at least was still interested.

"Not in here," Sherlock said.

"No," Molly said with a nearly hysterical giggle. "Is your bedroom fit for company?"

"Yes, of course."

Molly slipped her hand into Sherlock's.

He looked down at their joined hands, and at her. Then he nodded decisively and took her to his bedroom. It was much neater than any other room in the flat save the bathroom. Molly looked from her examination of the room to Sherlock. He was looking a bit uncertain again.

Molly stepped in close and leaned up to kiss him.

That put them on familiar ground, and she could feel Sherlock relax into it. Most of him, anyway, and then she had to stifle her giggle.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at her. "Really, Molly, juvenile humor?"

Molly shrugged, unrepentant. "It's better if you can laugh a bit. More comfortable."

"Hmm." Sherlock kissed her, and this time it was less of just a kiss and more of a prelude to more. He licked into her mouth, let his hands roam up and down her back, tilted his head to follow her lead.

"We could, um. You could touch me," Molly said.

Sherlock looked pointedly at his arms wrapped around her.

"I mean, um, more." Molly put her hands on his arms, and waited a moment to see if he was going to stop her before she pulled his hands around and pushed them up under the edge of her shirt to rest on bare skin. "I like being touched." She flushed a bit as she said it, but she went on determinedly. "Do you?"

"I think I would like you to touch me," Sherlock said. His thumbs moved in careful sweeps over her sides without his hands moving out of their position.

Molly kissed him gently, then started unbuttoning his shirt from the top down. When she had it all the way open, she put her hands flat on his chest. She glanced up at him. "Good?"

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. His hands twitched.

Molly smiled at him. "You can, um." She moved her hands on him, stroking his chest a bit to give him the idea that he could move his hands too.

He got the hint - of course he did - and his hands pushed up her sides. He watched her while he did it, eyes flicking from her face to his hands.

Molly was watching him, so she saw the way his eyes went wider when he pushed his hands up far enough that her shirt went with them and bared her skin.

"Oh," he said.

"What do you like?" Molly asked.

Sherlock's gaze snapped back to her. "This, obviously."

"I meant specifically. Is it that you're doing it, or do you want me to take my clothes off?"

He frowned a bit. "What would you like?"

She knew what he meant, but she wouldn't mind either way, so what she said was, "I would rather like to take your clothes off."

"Hmm." Sherlock took his hands off of her and unbuttoned her shirt instead. "Yes," he said, when it was hanging open, "I can see how that would appeal."

"Does that mean you like it?"

"Yes, of course." Sherlock stroked his hands up her stomach, lightly over her breasts, and to her shoulders where he slid them under her shirt and pushed it down her arms.

Molly mirrored the action and pushed his shirt down. They stopped touching each other for a moment to let their shirts fall to the ground. Molly winced internally at just letting Sherlock's posh clothes drop on the floor, but if he wasn't going to be concerned about it, neither was she.

Sherlock touched her again, his hands curving over her shoulders, stroking down her sides, his touch over her breasts dulled by the fabric of her bra. "I very much like seeing my hands on you," he said as if it were a surprise.

Molly leaned up to brush her lips over his. "I like feeling them on me." She slid her hands around him and pulled him close so she could feel him skin to skin. He was warm, and more solid than he sometimes looked. Molly leaned her cheek on his chest, and imagined she could feel his heartbeat.

Sherlock's hands swept up her back, down, and then paused at the clasp of her bra.

Molly kissed his chest. "Go on."

Sherlock unhooked the clasp easily, and Molly let go of him with one arm, then the other so he could pull her bra all the way off.

"Oh," he said when they were pressed chest to chest. He tilted her head up and bent to kiss her. It was fierce, almost frenzied, and Molly kissed back with just as much enthusiasm.

He seemed more sure of himself, and when he reached for the button on Molly's trousers, she let him, and her fingers fumbled as she unbuttoned his. Sherlock pushed her pants down with her trousers, so she did the same for him, careful not to catch them on the erection she'd been able to feel through them.

"Tell me what you like," Molly said. She ran her fingers up the line of his cock.

"That," Sherlock said, sounding half-strangled. "That was good."

Molly smiled a bit. "You can, um."

"Really, Molly, you're a doctor. Surely you can say the words." Sherlock's delivery was slightly less demanding given that his voice hitched when she stroked his cock.

"Touch me," Molly said. "You can," she shrugged a bit, "wherever."

Sherlock ran a single finger down the length of her arm as if to chastise her for her imprecision, but as it made every nerve in her body pay attention to that single touch, it didn't have the effect he might have wanted it to. He put his hand between her legs, then, and repeated that same single fingertip stroke there.

Molly moaned, an entirely unplanned noise as her knees went weak and heat ran through her.

Sherlock kissed her, even as he touched her, his fingers stroking, touching, learning her.

Molly nearly forgot to touch him, but his hips rocked, pushing his cock into her hand, and she belatedly remembered.

"I want," Sherlock said after a few minutes, his voice hoarse.

Molly could have teased him for not being more specific, but she wanted him too much. "Condom," she said, the only practical consideration she had the brain power to spare. "Do you have one?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "I thought we might want them at some point."

Molly grinned up at him. "Did you predict just when?"

"No," he said with a frown. "I expected it to be a few weeks yet."

Molly laughed and kissed him. "Are you glad to be wrong?"

He looked torn, and Molly laughed again. She stepped back, stopped touching him because she wasn't sure they'd be able to manage remembering a condom if they didn't stop for a moment. "Condom," she reminded Sherlock.

He got one out of his bedside drawer, which struck her as funny. It was so prosaic for someone who was frequently so dramatic.

He turned with the condom in his hand and frowned at her. "What position would you like to use?"

Molly couldn't help her giggle, and then she went to kiss him to show she wasn't laughing at him. "It's sex, Sherlock. You don't have to plan it all out." She plucked the condom packet from his hand and tore it open. She was the one with more experience, after all.

She put the condom on him, with only an extra stroke or two down his cock. It worked to make him relax a bit, and then she pushed him down onto the bed and climbed on top of him. That was one of the awkward bits, as she reached between them and held his cock so she could put it in her.

She went slowly. The human vagina was remarkably elastic, but it had been a while since she'd had sex. And she wanted to feel it as she took him into her. He wanted to have sex with her now, but he might not want to again, and Molly wanted to be able to remember it later.

"That is a remarkable sensation," Sherlock said when he was all the way in her. The strain in his voice didn't match the precision of his words.

Molly looked down at him, and she loved him so much she thought she might cry with it. She leaned down, her hands sliding up his chest as she braced herself on him, and kissed him. It did lovely things to the feeling of him in her.

Sherlock's hips moved restlessly, and that was lovely too, the feeling and knowing that he wanted it, wanted her.

He was making gasping noises as he moved, and then his eyes focused on her intently. "Manual stimulation," he said. "Is that something you like?"

"Yes," Molly said promptly. "Yes, touch me."

He touched her back, nipples, belly before he put his hand between her legs. That touch made her cry out, and it reminded her that pleasure was the point. She moved, making it feel that much better.

Sherlock was out of sync with her for a moment, but he was brilliant and clever, the most brilliant and clever man she'd ever met, and he caught up. Then it was all movement and feeling and they were moving together, and she kissed him when she didn't absolutely have to breathe.

She heard herself moan once, twice, and then Sherlock thrust into her out of rhythm like he couldn't help himself, and then it was frantic and fast and she came with a moan that reverberated with her orgasm all through her.

Sherlock thrust into her a few more times, and she watched his face as he came with a gasp. He closed his eyes, then opened them and blinked up at her a few times.

Molly couldn't help smiling at him. She bent down to kiss him.

"Condom," he said after far too short a kiss. He held the base of the condom while she drew herself off of him.

He had been prepared for this; there were tissues on his nightstand and a bin next to it.

Molly hovered next to him, not sure if she'd be welcomed now that they'd finished.

Sherlock frowned at her, and then he pulled her down onto him and kissed her. It was a longer kiss, more what she wanted. The cuddle was nice too. Their kiss drew to a close. Molly shut her eyes and leaned her forehead against Sherlock's for just a moment.

"Do you want me to leave?" she asked.

"Do you want to leave?" Sherlock asked back.

"No," Molly whispered.

Sherlock's hand stroked over her hair, the sort of comforting gesture she didn't really take him for. "You can stay. If you would like."

Molly smiled. "I would like that very much." She shifted to lie beside him instead of on top of him. "You didn't tell me about your case. You said it was a clever one."

"Yes," Sherlock said, sounding bright and delighted and far too awake for the late hour and what they'd just done. "It was very clever."

Molly fell asleep before he finished telling her about it.

 

**Christmas Eve**

Sherlock took the front seat, leaving Molly to ride in the back of John's car with Rosie.

"You could be a gentleman and let Molly sit up front," John said.

Sherlock squinted at him. "That's a terrible idea. She's much shorter. She doesn't need as much leg room."

Molly settled the argument by getting into the back of the car and closing her door firmly. Sherlock spent the whole drive looking smug.

They'd left practically in the middle of the night, so it was still early when they got to Sherlock's parents' house. There was a black car waiting out front.

Sherlock's parents and Mycroft were waiting for them inside. Molly greeted them, and then blinked at the man standing behind them.

"Oh, hello, Inspector."

John looked up from where he'd been handing Rosie over to Sherlock's father. "Greg. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yeah, came down with Mycroft."

Molly wasn't quite sure what the look that flashed across Sherlock's face meant.

"We should be going," Mycroft said, stepping forward.

John took Rosie back from Sherlock's father and the Holmeses filed out, leaving Molly, John, and Inspector Lestrade looking at each other.

"Came down with Mycroft?" John asked.

"Didn't have any other plans," the Inspector said.

Molly looked between them. "I'm going to make some tea. John?"

"God, yeah," John said. "I would love one."

Molly nodded. "Inspector?"

"Call me Greg" he said. "And no, thank you. Had a cup of coffee on the way down."

Molly went past them to find the kitchen and put the kettle on. She could hear them talking, but not what they were saying. She could tell from the tone of their voices when they switched from conversation between the two of them to one or the other of them talking to Rosie.

It was too early. Tea would help. The Holmeses wouldn't be back for hours yet. Maybe a nap before then.

Molly took the tea through and gave a cup to John. "Can we figure out where our rooms are, do you think?"

"Mycroft showed me around," Greg said. "I can take you up after you finish your tea." He had Rosie, and he turned his attention to her after saying that.

After they finished their tea, Greg took them upstairs and showed them to their rooms as well as pointing out who was in the other rooms. The rooms were small, but there were a large number of them.

Molly left her bag in her room and they spent much of the morning in the sitting room with Rosie. Greg made sandwiches for lunch, and Molly took a nap after.

She and Rosie, at least, were well-rested when Sherlock's family returned. John seemed tired after traveling with Rosie, and Greg worried. Sherlock's family looked tired and drawn.

"Anyone fancy a walk?" Greg asked. "I could stand to stretch my legs."

"I would be pleased to accompany you," Mycroft said.

"I should start supper," Sherlock's mother said. Sherlock's father went into the kitchen with her.

"Here." John handed Rosie to Sherlock in a way that made Sherlock take her so she wouldn't fall. "If you're going to spend Christmas Eve with your goddaughter, spend some time with her."

Sherlock paced the room, exchanging his lecturing, on the composition of wood for various stringed instruments, for Rosie's babble.

After a while, when Rosie found herself so fascinated with the collar of Sherlock's shirt that she stopped paying the slightest attention to what he was saying, Sherlock sat down on the sofa, so close to Molly that their legs touched from hip to knee.

Molly took that as a request for comfort. She leaned against him and rested her head on his arm.

They just sat for a while, with Rosie sometimes burbling at them.

"My sister doesn't speak," Sherlock said eventually.

Molly rubbed her cheek against his arm so he would know she was listening.

"We play the violin," Sherlock said.

Molly tilted her head to look up at him. "I'm sure that's lovely."

Sherlock looked down at her, his face troubled. "She taught me how to play. I don't remember it."

"But you remember how to play. That's a good thing from your sister."

Sherlock's frown eased a bit. "Yes, I suppose so." He shifted Rosie so he was holding her on his lap with just one arm and brought his other hand up to tilt Molly more toward him. He bent down and kissed her. It was warm and gentle and comfortable.

"What was that for?" Molly asked when they parted.

"It's what people do, isn't it?" Sherlock said. "We're dating, and I'm glad to come home to you."

"Oh," Molly said, touched that he thought of her that way. She leaned up to kiss him again. She would have stayed there for much longer but for Rosie deciding she didn't have enough attention and yelling to get some.

Sherlock pulled away and pressed a kiss to the top of Rosie's head. "You can't always yell when you want attention."

Across the room, John gave a hastily muffled snort that got a mildly offended look from Sherlock in response.

Rosie settled down to excited babbling and reached for Molly.

"Would you like to see your godmother?" Sherlock said. He kept one hand on Rosie to keep her from falling as he let her crawl from his lap to Molly's.

"Hello," Molly said to Rosie. She caught Rosie as she tumbled over to her and held her close. "Are you tired of Sherlock already? You've been with us all day."

Rosie babbled away at her. Molly smiled back and let the baby do as she wanted.

Greg and Mycroft returned from their walk just before Sherlock's mother called them all in to supper.

It was a subdued supper, but for Rosie, and they all drifted off to bed, or at least their bedrooms, early in the evening.

Molly was still awake, reading a novel in bed, when Sherlock pushed her door open. He draped his dressing gown over a chair and got into bed with her.

"Rubbish," he muttered at her book.

Molly marked her place and put the book on the nightstand. "Don't spoil it for me. I'm enjoying it." She slid down in bed so she was lying next to him. "Are you sleeping here tonight?"

Sherlock said, "Obviously," sharply, then sighed and softened at her side. "I mean, yes, if it's all right."

Molly reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. "Yes, of course." She moved closer, so they were almost cuddling. "You had a rough day, didn't you?"

Sherlock frowned. "More so than I expected. We have been before."

"But not at Christmas." Molly shrugged as best she could under his questioning look. "Christmas carries more emotional weight, doesn't it?"

Sherlock leaned in and kissed her. "I was inordinately glad to come home to you."

Molly felt warm all through, and not just because of his body heat joining hers in the bed. "I was glad to have you come home to me."

Sherlock smiled softly at her, and then he kissed her, and again and again and again.

Molly returned every one of his kisses with one of her own. She held him as close as he was holding her.

She blinked at him when he slid his hands up under her pajama top. "Oh, are we? Here?"

"Yes," Sherlock said.

Molly raised her arms to let him pull her top off. She kissed him again, feeling the warmth of his hands on her skin in the cool room, before she said, "Condoms. In my bag."

He looked at her in that way he had of seeing everything. "You thought we would. No, you thought we might."

Molly shrugged a bit. "I thought it was a good idea to be prepared." She ran a hand down his still clothed chest. "I never know until it happens when you'll want to."

Sherlock got out of bed and went to her bag. "I frequently don't know until it happens that I'll want to," he said with his back to her. He turned around with a condom, which he tossed onto the bed while he stripped out of his clothes.

Molly watched him with distinct interest. She didn't get to just look at him naked particularly often, and she quite liked it.

Sherlock had to know what she was doing, and it had to be the reason for the look on his face that was one part smug smirk and one part pleased smile.

He got back into bed with her and she took advantage of the moment to run her hands up his chest. He was so thin, and there were scars, but she liked to feel him strong and alive and mostly healthy under her hands.

Sherlock pulled her close so their bare chests pressed together. Molly closed her eyes to better revel in the contact.

Sherlock kissed her cheek, then her neck. He nibbled at her skin, and then licked it. Molly fought not to laugh - of course he wanted a full sensory experience - but Sherlock pulled back anyway.

"Is that not done?" he asked.

Molly let herself laugh and wrapped a hand around the back of his head to pull him in for a kiss. "It's fine. You can."

Sherlock said, "Hmm," and she couldn't tell if it was considering or dismissive or just a noise.

Molly nuzzled his cheek. "Really, you can. Whatever."

Sherlock's second, "Hmm," was much more clearly pleased, and he followed it up with pushing her pajama bottoms and knickers off her hips.

There were a few awkward moments when Molly wriggled the rest of the way out of them while trying not to get too caught up in the bedclothes. Then she pressed against Sherlock, and it was skin against skin all the way down her body.

Molly raised her face to Sherlock's for a kiss that he returned with enthusiasm. He also slipped one thigh between hers. He pressed it up between her legs in just the right way to make her go all fuzzy with pleasure.

"Sherlock," she gasped. "Oh, please."

Sherlock gazed at her, his eyes very large so close to hers. "I could make you feel very good just like this." His thigh pressed right against her, and then again and again, and she very much believed him.

Molly groped at the bedclothes until she found the condom packet. She pressed it into Sherlock's hand.

He curled his fingers around it and looked at her. "How very conventional of you."

Molly shrugged a little. It was, she supposed, but it was Christmas, and if they were going to do this, she wanted all of him.

"Hmm," Sherlock said. "Very well." He tore the condom packet open, tossed the wrapper aside, and rolled the condom on. He held her leg up to give him room to push into her, then lowered it so they were twined together again.

There wasn't much room for them to move, tangled up in each other as they were and lying on their sides. They rocked together a bit, and their hands roamed, Molly getting to touch every bit of Sherlock she could reach, from his lean shoulders to his lovely rounded arse. Sherlock's hands returned the favor, touching more of her than she could of him with his longer reach.

Their mouths met, over and over again, their kisses soft and deep, everything slow and languorous. Every time Molly gasped, Sherlock kissed her again. She got louder, couldn't help it, when she was getting close, when every press of Sherlock against her made her whole body tingle.

Sherlock put a hand over her mouth. "Unless you'd prefer for everyone to hear you."

Molly flushed. It was almost enough to put her off the whole idea, but then Sherlock moved in her and she moaned into his hand.

She made an effort to stay quiet, one that wasn't helped by the way Sherlock made her feel. It rose in her again as he moved in her, touched her, their skin catching and sliding together. Then it crashed over her, and she could hear her moans muffled by his hand as she came.

Sherlock kept moving against her, not letting up. He kissed her fiercely, then broke away, and Molly brought her hand up to muffle his cries as he came.

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, and stayed in her, close to her.

Molly petted his cheek, then reached between them to take care of the condom before it became a problem. When she turned back from dropping it into the bin next to the bed, there were tears leaking from the edges of Sherlock's still closed eyes.

Molly's eyes widened, and she froze, unsure what to do in such an unfamiliar situation. Not someone crying after sex - that she'd encountered before - but Sherlock crying after sex was new. Sherlock crying at all.

She didn't know what Sherlock would want, but she knew what she would want if she were the one crying. She laid down beside him and gently, carefully put her arms around him.

Sherlock pressed his face to her neck for a very long moment, then he turned over, away from her. Since he hadn't actually pushed her away, Molly stayed pressed against his back. She could feel the movement of his arm as he, she thought, reached up to wipe the tears away.

Molly brushed Sherlock's hair back. "Do you feel a sense of emotional release?"

"I did not expect that," Sherlock said.

Molly kissed the back of his neck. "You had an emotional day."

Sherlock took her hand in his. "Yes, I suppose I did."

Molly cuddled up against him. "Would you still like to stay with me tonight?"

Sherlock didn't give her a verbal answer, but he held tightly to Molly's hand and declined to move.

 

**Christmas Day**

There were presents in the morning, most of them for Rosie.

Molly gave Sherlock a pair of gloves to replace a pair he'd lost on a case the week before, and said, "I also have some toes for you, but they're at the morgue. I didn't think they would travel well."

"Thank you, Molly," Sherlock said. "That's a very good present."

He sounded so surprised that Molly smiled at him uncertainly and turned her attention to the box he'd given her. Inside, between layers of tissue paper, lay an incredibly soft jumper with a pattern of brightly colored blocks.

"Oh, thank you." Molly held the jumper up to herself and smiled at Sherlock. It looked like it would fit her perfectly, of course. "I love it."

"You're surprised," Sherlock said. "Why are you surprised?"

"I dunno," Molly said with a shrug. "I guess if I'd thought about it, I would think you'd buy me something horribly posh, like what you wear." Then she remembered she was in a house full of horribly posh people and felt terrible embarrassed.

Sherlock frowned at her. "But this is what you like. Why would I buy you something you don't like?"

"Sometimes people do."

"People are idiots," Sherlock said.

Molly would have liked very much to kiss him, but she wasn't sure how he would take to that in front of his family. She held the jumper up to her cheek instead, feeling just how soft it was.

They spent the rest of the morning drifting about. Greg and Mycroft took a walk. Sherlock disappeared somewhere with John for a bit. Sherlock's parents spent time playing with Rosie. Molly went upstairs for a bit of a nap.

She also offered to help Sherlock's mother with dinner. "I'm not much of a cook, but if I can dissect a body, I can help cut things up in the kitchen."

Sherlock's mother said, "Oh, thank you, dear. That's very kind of you," and declined her help.

Mycroft disappeared when he and Greg came back from his walk, Sherlock had gone off somewhere, and Rosie was asleep, leaving just John and Molly in front of the fire when Greg came in.

Greg looked around as if he were checking to make sure they were alone. He was so obvious about it that both Molly and John looked up at him questioningly.

Greg rubbed a hand over the back of his head. "Did you and Sherlock ever?" He directed the question at John and let it sort of trail off.

"Did we ever?" John repeated with a questioning look.

He seemed to figure out what Greg was asking at the same time Molly did.

"Oh, no," he said, shaking his head. "No, we never." He tilted his head. "You and Mycroft?"

Greg tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. "No idea. I was hoping you had some insight into the Holmes mind."

"I don't think anyone has that," John said. "You could try Molly."

Both of their attention shifted to her. She smiled nervously. "I don't know that I can help. Unless you want to run a drug test." The joke fell flat, and Molly shrugged.

Greg shook his head. "Doesn't seem the type. Now a test to discern friendly or romantic intentions, that would be helpful."

"For a lot of people, I would imagine," John said.

Greg looked at Molly consideringly. "How'd you figure it out? With Sherlock."

"He told me he meant it when he said he loved me and invited me on a date. I wasn't even really sure he considered me a friend."

Both John and Greg stared at her.

"I might have a coronary if Mycroft said something like that to me," Greg said.

"Being loved by my children can be terrifying," Sherlock's father said. Molly hadn't noticed him come into the room. "Their mother is the same way."

"How do you deal with it?" Molly asked.

"I've had half a century to get used to it now." Sherlock's father patted her shoulder. "You all will too. Having them love you is terrifying, but exciting too, and well worth it."

"Not possible." Sherlock declares. "Mycroft doesn't have a heart."

Molly hadn't noticed him or Mycroft joining them either.

"Quite the contrary," Mycroft said, and Molly suspected he'd timed it just as Sherlock took a sip of his drink. "After all, I love you to the ends of the earth."

Sherlock choked on his drink. "My God. Must you do that?"

"It is Christmas," Mycroft said. "That's traditionally a time for telling people you love them."

"Do you ever say it back?" Molly asked, and everyone turned to look at her. She kept her eyes on Sherlock. "Do you ever tell Mycroft you love him?"

"One doesn't need to tell Mycroft things," Sherlock said.

"Indeed," Mycroft agreed.

"But you tell Rosie."

They all looked at her more intensely.

"I'm hardly an infant," Mycroft said.

"No," Molly said. "I mean, she doesn't understand and you say it to her. I mean, sometimes it's the telling that's the important part."

Sherlock looked at her as if she'd surprised him, and then he turned to Mycroft. "You are my brother and there is no one in the world I love the way I love you."

Both Sherlock and Mycroft looked a bit shell-shocked as they stared at each other. After a few seconds where Molly barely dared breathe and certainly didn't move, Mycroft said, "Merry Christmas," and the two of them stalked off in opposite directions.

Sherlock's father looked at Molly with more interest than he had before. "That was unprecedented."

Greg rubbed his forehead. "I need a drink."

*

Molly woke up to Sherlock insistently saying her name and shaking her shoulder.

"Sherlock, what? It's the middle of the night."

"No," he said. "It isn't." He held up his phone.

Molly squinted against the sudden brightness to see that it was, in fact, 11:56pm. Sherlock let her push the phone away from her face but didn't otherwise move away from her. The angles of his face in the glow of his phone made his look all the more intense.

It didn't seem like a sexy sort of intense. Maybe he had a case? But surely not on Christmas, and Greg was sleeping down the hall.

"It's still Christmas," he said.

"For four more minutes," Molly agreed.

"Three now." Sherlock kept staring down at her. Then he said, "I love you."

The words didn't register for a moment, and then they did. Christmas, and telling is the important part, and it was only the second time he'd said it. It warmed her through, an even better present than the jumper.

Molly let that warmth bubble up into a smile. "I love you too."

Sherlock nodded like he was satisfied by that, and then he laid down next to her, phone still clutched in his hand. He angled it so the light of it wasn't directly in her face, which was an unusual bit of consideration from him.

"Was that it?"

Sherlock looked away from his phone and at her. "Yes." He gave her a mildly concerned look. "Should there have been something else?"

With anyone else, there would have been, but Sherlock was Sherlock, and she loved him just as he was. "No." Molly leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Good night, Sherlock. Merry Christmas."

"Boxing Day now," he said, and then she rolled over so he could do whatever he wanted with his phone without the light bothering her.

 

**Invitation**

"This is inconvenient," Sherlock said. As he'd just burst into Molly's flat without knocking, she wasn't sure what he was referring to. He stripped off his coat and strode in to where she was sitting on the sofa.

Molly tipped her book down to look at him.

Sherlock frowned at her, and started unbuttoning his shirt. "I said, this is inconvenient."

"I heard you." Molly put her book down when he got his shirt all the way open and shrugged it off his shoulders. "What is? You dropping trou in my flat?"

"No." Sherlock actually did drop trou, and his pants too, and he'd gotten rid of his shoes and socks somewhere between her front door and where he stood naked and gorgeous and hard in front of her. "You living here."

Molly looked up from his cock to his face. "My living here."

"Yes," Sherlock said impatiently. "Why are you still dressed?"

It all seemed a bit mad, but so did everything else about Sherlock. Molly stripped off her jumper. "I wasn't expecting you." She unhooked her bra and let it drop to the sofa as she stood up to take off the rest of her clothes.

"Inconvenient." Sherlock took two large steps forward. His arms came around her, one hand holding the back of her head and the other resting on her back, partly curled in on itself. Then he kissed her, and it was one of those fierce, hungry kisses he sometimes gave her when he wanted to have sex.

Molly kissed back the same way. She wasn't wet yet, but she was getting there with his hands on her. They roamed restlessly over her body, one of them still curled in on itself.

"Do you need," Sherlock paused and made a face that was half irritation and half confusion, "foreplay?"

Molly nearly laughed at him. "Yes," she said instead, "I do because I wasn't thinking about you or sex or any of it until you showed up."

His look turned to full irritation, although she wasn't sure if it was at the idea she hadn't been thinking about him or the necessity of foreplay.

At least he'd learned quite a bit about her in the time they'd been dating, so he knew where and how to touch her to make her feel good. And it was good, because Sherlock remembered everything he thought was important.

When his hands came around to her stomach, moving up toward her breasts, she could see that the curled hand was curled around a condom packet. Molly plucked it out of his hands. It left his hands free to keep touching her, and put her in charge of deciding when they were going to use it.

It didn't take particularly long to get her there. She hadn't been turned on when Sherlock arrived, but she always found him appealing, and he had a good idea of what to do to make her appreciate his closeness even more.

When she was ready, when her whole body felt ready and she was wet enough that it would be easy, she pushed him down to sit on the sofa.

Sherlock frowned at her, but then seemed to get it when she put the condom on him. His hands steadied her as she, feeling a little bit awkward, but not enough to stop her, climbed onto him. She sank down onto his cock, also a bit awkward, but very much worth it for how good it felt.

"This puts you in a great deal of control." The words were like any of Sherlock's observations, but the tone was strained.

"Yes." Molly rolled her hips once, then stopped. She couldn't read him the way he could read her. "Is that okay?" She was watching him closely, so she could see the moment when he was surprised.

"Yes," he said. He looked at her thoughtfully, then leaned forward and licked her nipple.

"Oh!" Molly's voice came out somewhere between a squeak and a moan.

"Hmm," Sherlock said. He looked up at her. "It does put your breasts in a convenient position."

Molly let out a nervous giggle that turned into a definite moan when Sherlock drew her nipple into his mouth. It felt like that touch spun all through her body.

She moved her hips, unconsciously at first, and then putting effort into it, rocking on Sherlock's cock until it was just the right rhythm, just the right pressure.

Sherlock took his mouth off of her breasts, which was not what she wanted. He looked at her, then asked, "Are you going to?"

"Come?" Molly finished for him. "Yes. Is this working for you too?"

"Yes," Sherlock said shortly.

Molly put her hand on the back of his head. "Do what you were doing before."

He bent his head to her breast, and Molly let out a sigh when he licked over her nipple. It was good. The position was good. She could move how she wanted, and she always wanted Sherlock even if she hadn't been thinking about it before he walked into her flat.

She came with his mouth on her nipple, and it was good, a soft wave that rolled over her. She stopped moving after, and tipped Sherlock's face up so she could kiss him. That was another soft wave of pleasure moving over her, and she rocked her hips a bit again because he hadn't come yet.

Sherlock rested his head against her shoulder, his breath hot on her skin. He came like that, with a groan that she could feel all through her body.

Molly waited for him to finish, and then she lifted herself off of him and stretched across to the tissues next to the sofa to take care of the condom.

Sherlock pulled her close before she could do more than wrap it in a tissue. She dropped the tissue onto a plate still sitting on the table and put her arms around Sherlock while he snogged her.

"Inconvenient," he muttered.

"My living here," Molly said, recalling the conversation at the beginning of all this.

"Yes, obviously."

Molly pulled back to look at his face. "It's my flat. Where else would I live?"

"Baker Street," Sherlock declared.

Molly stared at him while she let that sink in. "Baker Street," she repeated, still not sure what he was on about.

"Yes. It would be much more convenient." Sherlock ran his hand up her still bare thigh.

Molly gave him an uncertain smile. "Are you asking me to live with you so it would be more convenient for us to have sex?" It seemed ridiculous and impossible, but so many things about her relationship with Sherlock could be described that way.

"Yes." Sherlock frowned at the look on her face. "I would," he said slowly in the way he always did when they were having emotional conversations, "like to have you close."

"Oh." Warmth bloomed through Molly's chest. She did love him, and he was lovely when he said things like that. Then she thought it through. "What about John?"

Sherlock frowned even more deeply. "What about John?"

"I thought he would move back into Baker Street with you."

Sherlock waved away that concern. "Rosie needs her own room. He'll move into the basement flat when he's ready to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with a woman. No more than six months."

He was serious. The utterly mad, utterly brilliant man Molly loved was asking her to move in with him.

Sherlock shifted, almost as if he were nervous or uncertain. "I am not an easy flatmate. I play the violin at all hours and don't speak for days. There are experiments in the kitchen and cases all over the sitting room."

Molly put her hands on his cheeks to keep him from going on. "I know that," she said. "I love you."

Sherlock blinked, and then a smile that was almost shy spread across his face. "You'll move to Baker Street."

"Yes," Molly said.

"You'll have the upstairs room," Sherlock declared.

Of course they wouldn't be sharing a room. That was the sort of thing normal people did, and this was anything but.

Sherlock's expression turned more gentle. "I don't sleep on your schedule. You'll be of more use at the morgue if you've slept."

"I'm a sound sleeper." Molly laughed, completely delighted with him, and then snogged him silly.

 

**Live-In**

In many ways, living with Sherlock was much like living alone. Molly did the shopping, the washing up, and her own laundry. There were also ways in which it was nothing like living alone. She kept her own room clean; Mrs. Hudson brought them tea, frequently made them breakfast, and bustled about cleaning the common areas of the flat while reminding them, "I'm not your housekeeper dear."

They had sex in the morning or the middle of the afternoon on Molly's day off or, twice, the middle of the night. After the second of those when Molly was drinking rather too much coffee to stay awake, Sherlock frowned at her across a body and then, when he returned home after solving his case declared, "Waking you up for sex decreases your effectiveness in the lab." It was blunt and rather rude, but also sweet, in a Sherlock sort of way, that he made sure she got enough sleep.

They had a row early on about Sherlock's experiments in the kitchen.

"You run a lab," Sherlock said without looking up from whatever he was examining under the microscope on the table. "You should understand."

Molly was so furious about the state of the refrigerator that she grabbed his chin to pull him away from the microscope and force him to look at her. "I run an orderly lab," she said. "A _professional_ lab. A lab where material for experiments and food are kept very separate to avoid contaminating either of them. If we're to have a home lab, it will be an orderly, _professional_ one."

Sherlock shagged her on the kitchen floor. She wasn't sure if he'd had the condom in a pocket or had stashed it somewhere in the kitchen. When the sex haze cleared, she thought he might just have been distracting her from the argument, but he took to keeping his experiments and food separate, so she was pleased with the outcome all around.

She was also pleased that if she happened to be home and in the common areas of the flat when John and Sherlock were rushing off for a case, Sherlock would stop to kiss her soundly on his way out the door. It was domestic, in an Sherlock sort of way, and all very nice.

*

It had been an average sort of day, nothing particularly good or bad about it, and Molly should have been able to drop right into sleep. Instead she was lying in the dark, wide awake, hand between her legs, thinking an orgasm would send her to sleep in no time. She certainly had enough memories of ones had with Sherlock to draw on. Really, it would be nice if Sherlock were there with her.

Molly got out of bed, took a condom from the nightstand, and went downstairs.

Sherlock was up, or at least he appeared to be deep in thought and not asleep. He was lying on the sofa in pajama bottoms, a t-shirt, and his dressing gown, eyes closed, and hands pressed together in front of his face.

"Sherlock."

He cracked one eye open and turned it in her direction. "Molly."

Molly hesitated, then rushed on. "Are you doing anything important?" Before he could open his mouth, she amended it to, "Anything that has to be done now?"

Sherlock opened his other eye. He looked her up and down, then his gaze sharpened and his hands fell out of their careful positioning. "No." He started to sit up, but Molly pushed him back down.

She put the condom into one of his hands and stretched out on top of him. He wasn't hard, but he was interested; he put his arms around her and kissed back when she covered his mouth with hers.

Molly hadn't been shagging him for months without learning a few things about what he liked. She pulled his pajama bottoms and pants down below his cock. Then she wrapped her hand around it and stroked it in long, tight pulls that made Sherlock get hard.

He put his hands up her shirt, which was quite nice as she wasn't wearing anything under it. She liked having his hands on her body, particularly when he seemed to have figured out that she wanted this to happen right now and was touching her in all the ways that felt best.

Molly plucked the condom out of Sherlock's hand. His hands stilled on her, and he put what seemed to be all his concentration into watching her roll it onto his cock.

She paused, because while having Sherlock's entire attention on her was something she wanted, it was still a bit daunting. "All right?"

"Mmm, what?" Sherlock glanced at her face for the briefest second. "Yes, yes, go on."

Molly shook her head, not quite laughing at him, pushed her pants off, and sank down onto him. She couldn't hold in a little "Ohhh" of satisfaction as she took him into her body.

"Yes," Sherlock said, just the faintest hint in his always so smooth voice that this was affecting him. The hands under her top slid around to her back, and he pulled her down so she was lying flat over him. It was a distinctly different angle, one that didn't leave much room or leverage for him to thrust into her.

"Sherlock," Molly murmured.

Sherlock's hands swept up her sides and down her back. "You were going to do this yourself to begin with. You can do this now."

Molly could feel the blush rising up her cheeks. She kissed Sherlock, hoping it would distract him enough to keep from commenting on it. She had more luck with that when she moved. Sherlock was still holding her close, so all the movement was just close pushes of her hips that felt a lot like rubbing herself off on him, but with his cock inside her.

"I want you to like this too," she managed to say.

"There is no question of that." Sherlock wouldn't quite meet her eyes, almost like he was embarrassed by what he'd said, or how hard his cock was in her.

Molly kissed him, because she loved him and because she thought it best if they just got on with it without continuing to talk about it.

She'd been turned on even before she'd come downstairs, and now she was so close. Every roll of her hips just brought her closer and closer, and then one of Sherlock's hands was on her arse holding her and encouraging her to move more and harder, and she could feel it rolling up over her until she came in a gasping wave.

She laid on top of Sherlock for a moment, catching her breath, before she realized he was still hard.

Molly knelt up and pulled herself off of Sherlock's cock. She stripped off the condom and wanked him instead, watching his face and the jump of his stomach muscles. It showed, the way she was making him feel, and not just in how hard his cock was. She could see it in his face and in his body. It was almost as good as feeling good herself.

Sherlock came with a choked-off gasp.

Molly reached across him for a tissue from the box she'd stashed next to the sofa. She wiped her hand clean enough, and bent over Sherlock to kiss him.

"You were right," she said.

"Of course I was." His voice wasn't quite even, still a bit gaspy. "About what?"

"It's much more convenient for me to live here."

Sherlock pulled her all the way down onto him and kissed her deeply. It was like one of his looks that took in everything there was to know about you put into kiss form.

"Do you know," he said, "that that's the first time you've done that?"

Molly frowned a bit. "We've had sex on the sofa before."

"Do keep up," Sherlock said. "That's the first time you've initiated sexual contact with me."

Molly blinked and considered that. Sherlock always came to her, and she had been, she supposed, wary of the rejection she risked if she went to him. "Oh," she said. "Was that, um, okay?"

Sherlock heaved a sigh and pulled her down to kiss her. "Yes," he said against her lips. "You should do it again."

Molly smiled at him, his acceptance filling her up with warmth. "All right then." She turned her face away as she yawned, then turned back and kissed him lightly. "I'm going to bed. I love you."

"Yes," Sherlock said. He watched her intently as she pulled her robe closed, and she only heard the rustle of him putting his clothing to rights after she'd turned to go up the stairs.

 

**The (Other) Woman**

"John, I hardly need to be escorted into my own flat." The words sounded like Sherlock's usual sort of thing; the lightness bordering on giggles in his tone did not.

Molly stepped out of the kitchen, abandoning her tea for the moment to see what Sherlock and John were on about.

"Molly!" Sherlock swooped in and pressed a fleeting kiss to her cheek. "The world is a wonderful place."

That didn't sound like Sherlock at all. Unless there was a serial killer, but if there were, he would be doing something related to solving a case. Molly peered at him. "Are you drunk?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Of course not!"

That was even more alarming. Molly could feel her face falling even as John's firmed up into anger.

"Where's your list?" John demanded.

"List? What list?" Sherlock looked at John, and then waved a hand dismissively. "There is no list."

John planted himself more firmly in front of Sherlock. "You're high. Where is the list of what you've taken?"

Molly's heart dropped. Not again.

Sherlock gripped John's biceps. "Nothing, John. I have taken nothing." He grinned. "This is a pure, glorious, natural high."

John stared back at him, and then asked, "The sort of high that comes from begging for mercy?"

Sherlock leaned in, conspiratorial, but not particularly quiet. "Twice." He spun away from John and clapped his hands. "Twice, John! The world is a wonderful place."

Molly had no idea what they were talking about.

John looked at her, then at Sherlock who seemed to be making a game of stepping across the furniture.

"Get down from there," John said.

When Sherlock did, John grabbed his arm.

"Into bed."

Sherlock tried to pull away. "John. John, I'm not tired."

It was, Molly thought, much like Rosie's cries when she didn't want to nap.

"But you will be, and then you'll need to sleep it off. And you're scaring Molly."

Sherlock looked over his shoulder. Molly met his eyes, and saw the surprise on his face before John pulled him into the bedroom and closed the door behind them.

Molly stared at the closed door. Her tea had gone cold. She dumped it out and turned the kettle on.

John went straight for the kettle when he came out of Sherlock's room. He sat across the table from Molly, his hands wrapped around his cup and a complicated look on his face.

"Is he all right?" Molly asked hesitantly.

John rubbed one hand across his forehead. "Is he all right? No, no, he is not. He is an absolute nutter is what he is. But he's not on drugs."

"Then, um, what was that?"

"That." John met her gaze square on, like he was walking into battle. "Do you know about-" He let out a short laugh. "I have no idea how to say this. There's a woman."

Molly blinked. "The Woman?"

John's gaze turned sharp. "Told you about her, did he?"

Molly shook her head. "Not really. Just that he texts her sometimes."

"Right," John said. "Right." He took a deep breath. "She's a dominatrix."

It took a moment, but Molly wasn't stupid. She could put that together with what Sherlock had said about a natural high and what John had asked him about it. Her eyes prickled with tears. "She's here."

"Yes," John said. "Or was."

Molly looked away from his too-sympathetic gaze and wiped at her eyes. "Right, well, he did say he might see her." She tried to smile, but got the idea it didn't go over very well.

"I'm sorry," John said.

Molly wiped at her eyes again. "I'll be fine." She tried a smile that still didn't feel like it was going over well. "Thank you for bringing him home."

"Yeah," John said. "Right, well, I'd better go get Rosie." He paused on his way out, looked back at her, and kept going.

Molly left the tea mugs on the table and went up to her room to cry with less chance of interruption.

*

When Molly came down in the morning, Sherlock was sprawled across the sofa, eyes closed, with a teacup resting on his chest. There was a tray on the coffee table, which meant Mrs. Hudson had been in.

Molly poured herself a cup of tea and picked up a piece of toast. She alternated bites of toast with sips of tea while she made sure she had everything in her bag.

"You've been crying," Sherlock said, sounding curious.

Molly glanced up. She hadn't noticed him watching her. "Yes." There was no use trying to deny it to Sherlock. She shoved the novel she'd been reading into her bag; she rather thought she would take a quiet lunch alone.

Sherlock stood, stepped onto and off of the coffee table without upsetting the tea, and came to a stop in front of her. "Why have you been crying?"

Molly stared at him. She knew he wasn't always tuned into social cues, but surely even he couldn't be that dense. Her look didn't seem to do anything to enlighten him.

"I have to go to work."

"Molly." Sherlock wrapped his hand around her arm, stopping her as she started to turn away.

"Sherlock," Molly snapped. "I have not interfered with your career. You will not interfere with mine."

Sherlock dropped her arm. Molly didn't turn to see what expression might have been on his face as she walked away.

*

Molly half expected Sherlock to show up at Bart's, but if he'd been there, he'd stayed out of her way. She didn't see him again until she came home with takeaway. He was on the sofa; she wasn't sure if he'd moved all day.

She hung her coat and bag on the coat rack and went straight through to the kitchen with the food. "Are you eating?"

"Yes." Sherlock's voice came from directly behind her.

Molly jumped, then settled herself and got forks from a drawer. "Chicken tikka or lamb vindaloo?"

Sherlock took the box with the lamb, although Molly didn't know whether that was because he wanted it or because he knew Molly wanted the chicken, and sat across from her. "You're still upset."

Molly opened her curry and took a bite.

"And yet you brought me food." Sherlock steepled his fingers and stared at her. "Why would you do that?"

Molly shrugged one shoulder. Because she loved him. Because no matter how much he'd hurt her, he'd still come home. Because she suspected that if she hadn't, he would have eaten most of her dinner anyway.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Why were you crying?"

Molly took in a sharp breath to keep herself from crying again. The fact that he didn't know only made it worse. "Because you were with," she couldn't bring herself to use his name for her, "someone else. And you came back happy. _High_." Molly blinked against her tears. "And I don't want this to end."

Sherlock looked utterly confused. It was almost funny. "Why should it end?"

"Sherlock," Molly said, the word half a sob.

Sherlock looked positively alarmed, and then he came around the table and stood over her. "Molly." He pulled her up and put his hands on both of her shoulders.

Molly didn't look up at him.

"I love you," Sherlock said.

"You're an addict." Molly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Sherlock was silent for so long that Molly looked up at him.

"I have come to understand," he said, haltingly, long spaces between his words, "that some things are more important. I may want to," there was a long pause before he said, "achieve that high again." He tightened his hands when Molly tried to pull away. "I can't promise not to see her again. I do not have any intention of ending what we have."

He seemed completely sincere.

Molly looked away from him and stepped back. He let her go, and her arms felt cold where he'd been holding her.

"I need some time," she said without looking at him. "A few days, okay?" She smiled without any actual joy. "You know I'll come back."

He watched her as she closed up her chicken tikka and went upstairs to throw some things into a bag. He watched her walk down the stairs, and she could feel his eyes on her when she paused and said, "I'll be at John's," before she left.

There was a cab waiting for her on the street.

John opened the door at her knock.

Molly failed when she tried to smile. "Can I stay? Just for a few days."

"Yeah," John said. "Yeah, of course. Come in, come in."

Molly took her bag to the guest room she stayed in when she watched Rosie overnight. She was still carrying her chicken tikka. She didn't think she could eat.

John was in the kitchen when Molly went to put the food away. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her.

Molly shook her head. "No. I'm just going to get some sleep." She tried and failed again to smile.

She couldn't tell if the look John gave her was sad or pitying.

*

Sherlock stayed away from Bart's, or at least away from her, while she stayed with John, and Rosie was a good distraction that kept her from crying too much when she was at John's.

On the third night, John made them both a cup of tea after he put Rosie down and sat in a chair across from her. He didn't say anything, which was either very nice of him or a successful interrogation tactic.

"He told me there was someone else." Molly turned her teacup round and round between her hands. "It just didn't seem real. He said he probably wouldn't see her." She let out an unhappy laugh. "He didn't tell me she was a dominatrix." She stumbled over the word. "I guess it didn't seem important when he was just texting her."

John tilted his head at her. "You were okay with it when he was just texting her?"

Molly shrugged. "Yeah, yes, I mean, it didn't make any difference to what we have."

"Didn't it?"

Molly took a sip of her tea while she thinks about it. "No, not really. I mean, he's Sherlock. He's always texting someone about something. And I already share him with you."

John frowned as he looked at her, and then the frown turned into confusion, and then resignation. "You're going back."

"Yes, of course I am." Molly lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "He's Sherlock."

"Right," John said.

They finished their tea in silence.

*

Molly took her things with her to Bart's in the morning, stowed them in her locker, and went home to Baker Street after her shift.

Sherlock was waiting in the center of the flat when she walked in. He looked nervous, for all that nervousness wasn't something she generally associated with Sherlock, and he watched in silence while she set her bags down and hung up her coat.

"You're staying." He said it more like a question than a statement.

Molly nodded. "Yes."

Sherlock's gaze was uncomfortable. "I might see her again," he said when it had been long enough that he probably knew everything about her life for the past few days.

Molly nodded again. "I know." She took a deep breath. "I believe you that you don't want to end this."

He took a step forward. She held up a hand to stop him.

"We use condoms every time," she said firmly. They hadn't stopped, not for the most risky things. It was a risk to say that they wouldn't stop ever. "And we're both going to be tested regularly. We should be anyway for how often we're in contact with bodily fluids."

"And needles," he said, eyes never leaving hers.

"Yes," she agreed. She hesitated.

He took another step forward, close enough that Molly had to choose between looking up or not meeting his eyes. She looked up.

"If- When you see her, I don't want to be near you while you're still high."

Something akin to a wince flashed across Sherlock's face, and then he nodded. "That is acceptable."

Molly nodded back. "All right."

She stepped away. He didn't try to touch her. She could feel his eyes on her back as she took her things up the stairs to her room.

*

For a time, there was a moment of hesitation before either of them reached out to the other. Sherlock made it a point to kiss her goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening, if he was in, but neither of them turned it into anything more than that single kiss. They kept to their own rooms.

There was a case, one that had Sherlock so excited he whirled about the room testing and discarding theories while Molly and John sipped their tea.

Sherlock stopped stock still in the middle of the room. "Of course! John, are you coming?"

John looked to Molly before answering.

"Go," she said. "I'll watch after Rosie."

"Then yeah," John said, "yes, I'm coming."

"Good. I love the clever ones." Sherlock paused in his frantic texting and whirlwind donning of his coat to swing back to where Molly sat on the sofa. He bent over and kissed her, and for all that it was swift, she could feel that he meant it.

He came home two hours later, despondent. "Not one of the clever ones at all. Lestrade could have solved that. Donovan. Anderson."

"Right," John said, trailing into the flat after him. "I'll just be taking my daughter and going home, then. Thanks, Molly."

"Oh, of course, any time." Molly waved goodbye from the kitchen where she was waiting on the kettle to boil.

"Molly," Sherlock said as if he'd only just noticed her. He turned the focus of his attention on her, which seemed much more forceful when she was replacing a case.

She smiled uncertainly at him.

He smiled back, one of the smiles he used when he wanted something, and then a different one, one that looked like he meant it. "Molly," he said again, and then he was right in front of her.

Molly looked up at him, always willing to turn toward him.

Sherlock bent down and kissed her. Deeply. Thoroughly. Passionately enough to make her knees a bit weak.

She held tight to his arms when he backed off to let her breathe. "Sherlock?"

Instead of answering her with words, he bent and ran his lips up her neck and over the curve of her jaw. It was gorgeous, made her feel warm and sexy and wanted.

She tilted her head down and pulled his up so she could kiss him. Time seemed to stand still while she did, while the two of them kissed deeply in the kitchen and heat pooled in her stomach.

The passage of time returned with a rush, and she wanted him, needed him. They hadn't had sex since he'd come home high from being with The Woman, and she wanted it now. Molly fumbled at Sherlock's trousers.

"Condom," she said, the word coming out half muffled where she couldn't stop kissing him.

It was like magic, one of those things Sherlock could do without letting anyone see how he did it, and there was a condom packet in his hand, and then it was in her hand and his hands were on the button of her trousers.

She had to step out of trousers and pants when he pushed them down her legs; she did it without letting go of him.

Sherlock's arms went around her, hands under her bum, and he lifted her up, set her down again on something - the table. His hands slid up the back of her shirt, and she fumbled between them to roll the condom onto him.

"Sherlock," she said, voice shaky and needy, and she tugged him closer, not that he required convincing. He came on his own, his hands pulling her to the edge of the table as hers pulled him in close so he could sink into her.

Molly nearly cried, to have him inside her again, to have his grasping hands pulling her close. She let out a whimper and tilted her hips into it and mouthed at Sherlock's jaw.

It was fast, Sherlock's hips snapping against hers while they clung together. It had been too long, and it should have felt like it was over too soon, but instead it felt perfect, the way she came with a cry and the way he thrust into her a few times more before he too was coming with a groan that felt like an accomplishment.

Molly kissed him afterwards, trying not to cry with how grateful she was that they could still have this. He held on to her, not trying to get away or go on to the next thing that caught his interest.

Sherlock broke their kiss, only to press another, softer one to her lips. "I would like," he said, "to take you to bed. The average refractory period for a man of my age is approximately thirty minutes."

That wasn't something they'd done before, going again. Molly wanted him still, would probably always want him, would probably always love him.

She went with him, the two of them taking turns to shed the remainder each other's clothes on the way. She thought Sherlock might lose interest, might rush off to investigate something or run an experiment or observe something he cared more for, but he didn't. They stayed in his bed for ages, kissing and touching, with all of his considerable mind focused on her.

She could do this, Molly thought, she could easily share him with someone else if he could still be like this with her.

 

**Neighbours**

Molly put up the baby gates to keep Rosie contained while she and Mrs. Hudson had a cup of tea.

"Look at her," Mrs. Hudson said. "She's so interested in everything." Rosie was, at the moment, trying to put her hands through the screen in front of the cold fireplace.

"Like her dad, I suppose," Molly said. "And Sherlock, of course."

"And you too, dear." Mrs. Hudson patted her shoulder. "You're a very curious girl. Good for Sherlock to have someone else around who's interested in things."

Molly smiled at her and sipped her tea. She wasn't entirely sure that was what made Sherlock want her around, but she liked Mrs. Hudson and wouldn't contradict her.

There was a rush of footsteps on the stairs, John and Sherlock returning from their case. A solved one, if John's breathless laughter and Sherlock's rushed footsteps were anything to go by. Sherlock stepped cleanly over the baby gate at the top of the stairs; John paused to open it to let himself through.

"Oh, you've solved it, then?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

"Of course I have." Sherlock bent down to place an easy kiss to Mrs. Hudson's cheek, and then to kiss Molly hello in a way that would have been a precursor to something different if they'd been alone.

"You did have some help," John said. He'd scooped Rosie up in his arms. She babbled at him, not many real words yet, but imitating speech patterns.

Sherlock scooped Rosie out of John's arms and held her up, spinning around to make her laugh. He hadn't taken off his coat, and it swirled around him. "It was brilliant, Rosie." He brought her in to kiss her cheek, and then spun her around again.

Molly wanted him. She wanted everyone else to leave so she could have him. John and Mrs. Hudson could close the door on their way out, and she could push him down on the floor. There were condoms somewhere in the room, she was sure; Sherlock usually procured them as if out of thin air when they shagged in the sitting room, but they had to come from somewhere.

Sherlock caught her eye, and the delight he was showering on Rosie turned into a look that was just for Molly. He handed Rosie over to John without looking away from Molly. "John, you should take Rosie home now." He stepped forward and took Molly's teacup out of her hand. He finished her tea, though they didn't take it the same. "Mrs. Hudson, thank you for the tea."

Mrs. Hudson caught on faster than John and started gathering up the tea tray. "We'd best go, John. Leave them alone for a bit."

Molly looked away from Sherlock to catch the dawning understanding on John's face, swiftly replaced by determination.

"Before we go," John said. "There's something I wanted to talk to all of you about."

"Must it be now?" Sherlock asked, still looking at Molly like he could see into her mind to see all the things she wanted to do with him. He probably could, in a way.

"We are all together," John said.

Sherlock let out a heavy sigh, and turned away from Molly to look at John. "Yes," he said.

"Yes?" John asked.

"You want to know if everyone's all right with it if you move into the basement flat. Yes, yes. Work out the boring details with Mrs. Hudson."

"Oh," Molly said. "Are you seeing someone?"

John opened his mouth. Closed it again. Opened it. "How on earth did you know that?"

"Oh, well, Sherlock said that you would move into the basement flat when you were seeing someone else." Molly looked at Sherlock. "No more than six months after I moved in."

Mrs. Hudson patted John's arm before she picked up the tea tray. "Come on, dear. We'll put on some music and discuss the rent."

"Music?" John asked.

Molly waved goodbye to Rosie as they walked off before shifting her attention back to Sherlock.

"They're like newlyweds," Mrs. Hudson said before the door closed behind them.

Molly stood up and went to where Sherlock was still in the middle of the room. She stretched up to kiss him, a long, lovely snog that left her clothing mussed and Sherlock's shirt and trousers unbuttoned.

"Where do you keep the condoms in here?" Molly asked.

Sherlock started to move away from her, but she held him close.

"No. You stay here. I'll get them." She looked down. "I want you on the floor. Keep your coat on."

Sherlock swept his coat around him as he lowered himself down to the floor. "There are some in the false book on the shelf. The geological data one."

Completely mad to keep condoms in a false book that also, she found, held a sealed bag of what looked to be tobacco ash. But she was glad for it, and she carefully closed and reshelved the book with all but one of the condoms still in it.

Sherlock was spread out for her, lying on the floor, on his coat, shirt unbuttoned and trousers unzipped.

Molly dropped the condom on his chest and took off her jeans and knickers. He'd gotten his cock out by then, and rolled the condom on, and Molly sank down onto him.

"I love it when you're happy," she said.

There was a moment, where she thought Sherlock looked surprised by that, and then Sherlock was leaning up, one elbow on the floor for balance and the other arm wrapping around her back to pull her close.

She rocked on him while they snogged, and it wasn't going to last long, because he was smiling into her mouth and she was in love with him, and they'd learned enough about each other's bodies to move together just right.

Molly didn't think they were being loud, particularly, but they weren't making any effort to keep each other quiet, and they were moving against the floor, and when she came, she broke away from Sherlock's mouth and moaned with it.

Sherlock's hips kept moving, thrusting up into her, and Molly gripped at his shoulders, encouraging him, watching the pleasure of what they were doing light up his face. He said her name, loud and long, when he came.

She took care of the condom when Sherlock slipped out of her, and laid down on top of him, her head resting on his chest over his heart. His hand stroked over her hair, hesitant at first, and then more sure.

"Condoms in the false book," she said, and then she started to giggle, couldn't help it, and she laughed more when she looked up to find Sherlock looking at her like he couldn't quite figure her out. Molly pushed herself up to hover over him. "I love you, you brilliant man."

The look on Sherlock's face became something much simpler, the happiness from earlier stealing over him. "I love you, too," he said, and she utterly believed it.

*

It was much more convenient to have all of them at Baker Street. Molly only needed to go downstairs when John asked her to watch Rosie, and Sherlock could, and did, shout down the stairs when he wanted John to come upstairs or go out somewhere with him.

"Oh, Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson sighed at him when he did that. "Don't shout like that when Rosie's about."

"She's much louder," Sherlock said with a dismissive wave of his hand, and even Molly wasn't sure if he honestly didn't see that it wasn't the best example for Rosie or if he was only pretending to be obtuse.

It was nice to have someone other than Mrs. Hudson around, too, when Molly needed to get out of the flat but didn't want to go far. Not that Mrs. Hudson wasn't lovely, because she really was, but sometimes Molly wanted company closer to her own age, or to spend time with a child who wasn't much fussed about adult things.

Sometimes she just went down for a cuppa at John's because they could drink their tea without having to say anything. The quiet was nice sometimes.

The knock on the door late on a Sunday was unexpected, since John hadn't mentioned expecting anyone, Mrs. Hudson would have announced herself, and Sherlock wouldn't have bothered.

John shook out his arms, like he did when he was expecting danger, before he looked through the peephole, and then relaxed and pulled open the door. "Greg. Sherlock's upstairs."

"Yeah," Greg said, and Molly could see him run a hand through his hair. "Wasn't looking for him."

"Oh," John said, "Yeah, come in. Tea?"

"Yeah, please." Greg sank down into the other chair, the one Molly wasn't already in. He looked absolutely wrecked.

John fetched another cup from the kitchen and poured for Greg before settling back onto the sofa. "Alright?"

Greg blew out a laugh. "I have just spent the entire weekend having the best sex of my life."

Molly was less surprised than John appeared to be.

"Uh. With Mycroft?" John asked hesitantly.

Greg nodded. "And Lady Smallwood." He turned his cup around in his hand. "Absolutely phenomenal, the two of them."

John looked like he'd just unexpectedly bit into a lemon.

"Really?" Molly asked.

Greg nodded fervently. "Yeah. My God. They just." He made an indeterminate gesture. "Both of them telling me what to do, all cool and posh and commanding."

John's mouth opened, closed, opened. "So you spent the weekend having kinky sex with _Mycroft_?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't have expected it."

"Sherlock likes that too," Molly said. "Or, your side of it." Then at the look Greg was giving her, she added. "Oh, no, no. Not with me. There's someone else. A woman. The Woman. A dominatrix."

Greg looked positively flummoxed and John as if he'd rather be anywhere other than in the middle of this conversation.

The door swung open and Sherlock swept in, then stopped. "You're all here."

"Yes," John said. "We are all here, and apparently we're discussing your sex life."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Why would you be talking about my sex life?" He looked over John and Molly, and then Greg and made a disgusted noise. "No, no, deleted. I don't want to know that!" He swept out, letting the door fall shut behind him.

In the silence in his wake, Molly and John and Greg looked at each other. John was the first one to laugh. Molly tried to stifle her giggles, but then she couldn't help it. Sherlock had looked so _appalled_ , and Greg was still looking like he could sleep for a week, and God, she'd missed having friends in the years she'd been isolated as the only one who knew the truth about Sherlock not being dead.

 

**Proposal**

Molly perhaps should have been suspicious of how quiet it was in the flat when she knew Sherlock was home, but she'd instead been taking advantage of it by lying on the sofa - it really was quite nice for that, which meant Sherlock wasn't just being dramatic when he did it - with a novel and was therefore wholly unprepared for Sherlock to ask, from across the room where he'd been sitting at the desk with his laptop, "Do you want to have children?"

Molly looked at him to figure out if this was a real conversation or just Sherlock talking. He was staring right at her, intent and watchful.

Molly closed her novel and swung around to sit up. "No."

She'd thought, when she was younger, that children would be part of her future. She couldn't even begin to imagine having children with Sherlock, though, and since she was deep enough into both her child-bearing years and her love for Sherlock that she was never going to have them with anyone else, that meant no children. There was Rosie, and for all that they talked to Rosie about Mary, Molly knew, they all had to know, that Molly was likely to be the closest thing to a mother Rosie would ever have. It was enough, and they were all in the same building. She had as much of a family as she was ever likely to have.

"Did you not know that?" Molly asked.

Sherlock's lips pressed together. "I thought it best to ask." Which could mean he hadn't, or that he had but wanted to make sure she knew he had.

Sherlock turned his attention to his laptop. "A small ceremony," he said. "You'll want a reception." He paused and made a disgruntled face. "My parents will want to come. And Mycroft. This is going to be awful."

Molly felt as though she'd lost the plot. "What are you talking about?"

"Our wedding," Sherlock said as if it were perfectly obvious.

Molly wasn't sure how seriously to take him. "Are we getting married, then?"

"Yes, obviously." Sherlock closed the laptop shortly and came across the room, stepping over the coffee table to stop right in front of her. When she looked up and up and up at him, he sighed and knelt on the floor. "It is what people do when they're in love."

Molly stared at him and tried to think what to say. "You're never much bothered by what people do."

Sherlock exhaled a gust of air like she was frustrating him by not following the leaps of his mind. "You don't want children. We are an established couple with compatible goals for the future. I love you. You love me. These are the ideal requirements for marriage."

It was absolutely the last thing Molly had ever expected from Sherlock. Only in her wildest, most outrageous and unrealistic fantasies had she ever thought about marrying him. She smiled uncertainly, then said, "This is the least romantic proposal I've ever gotten."

"It's only the second proposal you've ever gotten," Sherlock said, his mouth twisting for a moment like maybe he was feeling jealous the way people who were in touch with their feelings did. "And the only one that's going to result in a wedding."

Molly sucked in a breath and blinked back sudden tears. "Do you really mean it?" She shook her head; that wasn't the right question. "Do you really want to marry me?"

"The wedding's going to be awful," Sherlock said. "Miserable." Then he brightened. "Unless there's a murder like at John's."

Molly bit back a laugh. He was so completely himself.

Sherlock's mouth quirked like he was sharing her amusement. "I think the marriage will be good."

That was actually pretty good in the romance department. Molly put her hands on either side of Sherlock's face and leaned in to kiss him. "All right," she said. "Let's get married." She kissed him again, following his body with hers when he half stood and turned so he could stretch her out on the sofa again and follow her down.

"No planning for murders at the wedding," Molly said between kisses.

Sherlock wormed his hands under her shirt. "I never plan for murders."

It was completely ridiculous, and Molly laughed, and then laughed some more because they were going to get married and some part of her knew it could still end in disaster, but she had this at least, Sherlock snogging her on their sofa after having told her he loved her. It was wonderful.

 

**Wedding Night**

Sherlock disappeared halfway through the reception, which Molly ought to have expected. It gave her a chance to sit down, at least. They'd had a bit of a row about her shoes in the planning stages.

Sherlock had taken one glance at them and said, "Those are terrible shoes."

"I like them," Molly had protested.

"They're not comfortable," Sherlock had said, sneering at them. "The heel is too high."

Sherlock had taken on the bulk of the arrangements for the wedding, given that his involvement with John's wedding meant he had the experience to be efficient about it and that Molly wasn't much fussed about most of the details as long as all of their friends and Sherlock's family were there. However, the one thing they had agreed Molly would have full control over was her own outfit.

"They're pretty," Molly had said, her voice rising. "They're pretty and I like them and I want to feel pretty on my wedding day." Then, surprising them both, she'd burst into tears.

"You can wear whatever shoes you want," Sherlock had said carefully.

Molly had laughed a bit through her tears and said, "Sorry, sorry." She'd wiped at her eyes and sniffled and kept crying.

"Many people find weddings emotional," Sherlock had said, still half confused and half careful with her.

"I don't have any family," Molly had said. "I mean, of course I have you and John and Rosie and Mrs. Hudson and Greg, but I don't have any family of my own and I don't think about it except maybe I am thinking about it now and it's fine." She'd wiped at her tears again. "It's fine, and I don't mind really because we'll have all our friends and your family at the wedding. I want to look pretty on my wedding day."

Sherlock had said, "You will," with such finality that Molly had cried again, and it was all rather confusing for both of them.

He'd been right about the shoes, of course, that they weren't particularly comfortable, but she'd been right too that they were pretty. And with Sherlock disappearing, she had a chance to sit.

Of course that meant Archie, the child she remembered from John's wedding who she hadn't seen since although it was clear Sherlock had retained a friendship with him, came over after a bit to hang off the back of her chair and ask, "What do you do with the bodies after you cut them up?"

She'd sat down at the table where Greg and Mycroft were sitting with Sherlock's parents, so no one was particularly upset by the question.

"Well," Molly said, "first I have to figure out what happened to them. After that, I put them back together so they're not all cut up when their families claim them for the funeral."

"Cooool." Archie's eyes were shining. "How do you figure out what happened to them? Do you just look at them like Sherlock?"

Molly smiled as she shook her head and said, "No. I'm not like Sherlock. I have to go about it a bit differently. You can tell sometimes from their organs, like if their arteries are clogged, you'll be able to tell from their hearts. Or if their lungs filled up with fluid, you can see that."

"Stab wounds are a bit obvious," Greg said.

Molly grinned at him. "Yeah, but still have to look at everything to make sure that's what caused it. And then there are poisons. Those you mostly have to test for." She turned her attention to Archie. "You have to know how to do a lot of science."

"Very helpful when you can't tell exactly what the poison was just by looking," Sherlock said. He slipped into the chair next to her. "You have an analytical mind, and you're not put off by dead things. You could become a pathologist like Molly."

Archie seemed to think about it for a moment, then nodded. "I could do that."

"How many pathologists do you need who will do whatever you ask?" Greg said. Then he shook his head. "No, don't answer that. Where'd you get off to anyway? It's your wedding."

"Texting," Sherlock said, crisp as anything.

Molly turned to look at him, her smile not quite as firm anymore. "Oh?"

"Dinner invitation," Sherlock said. His face creased in a frown. "And congratulations. How did she even know about this?"

He looked so adorably confused, and Molly felt a bit bad for laughing. "You're Sherlock Holmes. It's been in the papers."

The look on Sherlock's face shifted into something more familiar. "The papers," he scoffed.

"You have made quite a name for yourself," Mycroft said.

Sherlock looked as if he weren't sure if he should be pleased or disgusted.

Greg looked up from his phone. "Speaking of." He passed his phone across the table to Sherlock.

Sherlock frowned down at it, and typed out a few quick texts Molly wasn't in a position to read. There was a familiar gleam to his eyes, and he looked up and called across the room, "John! There's a case. It's at least an eight." He passed Greg's phone back to him. "Come along, Lestrade. I'll need you to keep Anderson away from the crime scene."

"Sherlock," John said, having come over to them with a familiar look of incredulity on his face, "you can't go to a crime scene. It's your wedding."

Sherlock looked around the room, and then down at Molly. He frowned. "I didn't plan this."

He'd made it through the ceremony and over half the reception; Molly didn't want him to go, but it was much more than she'd thought he would suffer through for her.

"I know," she said.

Sherlock hesitated. "You're not upset."

Molly took his hand, feeling the gold band around his finger that she had no expectation he would wear with any regularity. "I knew who you were when I said I would marry you."

Sherlock looked down at her, his face thoughtful and a bit pleased. "Will you do the postmortem?"

Molly giggled and then forced herself to stop. "I've had at least one glass of champagne too many for that. Have someone let me know if it hasn't been done in the morning and I'll come in." She didn't expect Sherlock to do it himself, but Greg was listening, and John, and someone would contact her.

Greg stood and squeezed Mycroft's shoulder.

"I'll let Alicia know you won't be joining us later," Mycroft said.

Sherlock let out a disgusted noise. He took a step away from the table, pulling his hand out of Molly's. Then he took a step back and bent down over her, one of his large hands resting on the back of her neck, just below where her hair was pinned up, and kissed her slowly. "I love you," he said, quietly.

Molly cupped her hand around the back of his head, smiling at him and looking straight into his eyes. "I love you too." She pulled him in to kiss him again, then let go of him. "Go solve a murder."

Sherlock's face lit up with glee. "Lestrade, why are we still standing about? Let's go, let's go."

Molly watched him swan off with John and Greg in his wake. When she turned around, she shook her head at Mrs. Hudson's disapproving face.

"It's your wedding," Mrs. Hudson said.

Molly shrugged and grabbed another glass of champagne from one of the waiters. "He's Sherlock. And we did actually get married, so this is a success too." She leaned over and put her arm around Mrs. Hudson's shoulders, hugging her close. "I didn't expect him to stay all night anyway."

"You really are a good match for him," Sherlock's father said.

"Yes," Mycroft said. "Quite lucky that they met."

There was some suggestion in his voice that Molly couldn't read, but then Mike Stamford came over and asked if she'd like to dance, and she set herself to having fun with the friends who weren't off solving crimes with Sherlock instead of wondering what Mycroft was on about. It was a generally reasonable policy, and she had a lifetime, now, for Mycroft to be her inexplicable brother-in-law.

 

**Married Life**

Molly poked her head out of the kitchen at the knock on the open door to the flat. "Oh, hello, Greg. Sherlock's not in."

"Lucky I don't need him for a case, then," Greg said. "Mycroft'll be disappointed. I'm meeting him here because he had something for Sherlock."

Molly waved at the sofa. "You can wait for him if you like. Tea? I've just put the kettle on."

"Yeah, thanks."

Molly made two cups and sat across from him on John's chair. "Going out with Mycroft then?"

"Yeah." Greg smiled like he was trying not to smile more than he was. "Dinner. Just us tonight. Usually only see Alicia on weekends."

"Nice to have plans," Molly said.

"Yeah, it is," Greg agreed.

"That's still going well?"

"Yeah," Greg said. "Brilliant, actually. Seems a bit odd, I guess, but we understand that sometimes we have other priorities, and he can be very affectionate. In his way."

"Still the best sex of your life?" Molly asked, although perhaps she shouldn't have.

"My God, yes," Greg said, looking both pleased and a bit mystified. "With both of them or just with Mycroft. Even when it's not all," he made a gesture that Molly took to mean some variety of wild and kinky, "it's fantastic. Dunno how he does it, really."

"You know how they are," Molly said. "No reason they can't apply it to sex. Sherlock does. Well, now he does. He didn't have the data to work from at first." That was another thing she perhaps shouldn't have said. Too late to take it back, and she did enjoy the look on Greg's face as he absorbed what she meant.

"Oh, good, you're in." John came through the door with Rosie on his hip, John looking put-out and Rosie happily gumming on a biscuit. John nodded distractedly at Greg. "Can you take her for the evening?"

"Yes, I suppose." Molly put her cup down and set Rosie on her lap. "Case?"

"Oh, ah, no." John glanced at Greg, then back at Molly, then looked to the ceiling. "It seems that, uh, The Woman is in town. Or was." He looked at Molly. "Sherlock said you asked him not to be near you when he's like this."

There was a decided lack of distress where Molly thought she ought to be upset. She touched her thumb to her wedding ring, and considered that Sherlock respecting her wishes was, perhaps, one of the most romantic things he'd ever done for her.

"I did," she said. "Thank you."

"Right," John said. "I'm never going to understand your relationship, am I?"

It seemed to be a rhetorical question, but Molly said, "Probably not," anyway.

"Right." John bent down to kiss Rosie's cheek. "Be good for Molly." To Molly, he said, "We'll switch back tomorrow."

Molly laughed a little bit, and set a squirming Rosie on the floor. "I think I'll have the easier night."

"I have no doubt about that," John said with a sigh. "Greg."

Greg raised his cup in John's direction and said, after John had gone downstairs again, "Mycroft will be sorry he missed Sherlock."

Molly shrugged. "Always a risk when you're trying to catch Sherlock."

*

Molly texted John from a cab in the morning: _Got called in to cover a shift. Left Rosie with Mrs. Hudson._

She thought Sherlock might be back when she came home, but she certainly didn't expect him to leap up from the sofa and sweep his eyes over her from across the room.

Molly smiled uncertainly. "Hello?"

"You really did get called in," Sherlock said.

Molly hung up her coat. "Yes. I texted John." She looked at Sherlock, at how stiffly he was holding himself, and frowned. "Did you think I didn't?"

"You might not have wanted to be here," Sherlock said. He was still holding himself stiffly, like he was the one who was uncertain about their situation.

Molly blinked at him for a moment, noticed that he was wearing his wedding ring, and realized just what he was on about. "I'm not upset about it. You didn't come here when you were still, um, high, which is all I asked for."

Sherlock frowned at her. "I don't understand."

It was, by far, the most surprising thing Molly had ever heard him say. Or perhaps not, because she wasn't sure she wholly understood it herself.

She shrugged. "We're married. You said you didn't want to end this. I know no one person could ever be everything you want." She shrugged again. "It's okay."

Sherlock didn't move, so Molly went to him.

"It's okay," she said again, and she stretched up carefully to kiss him.

Sherlock put his arms around her, lightly at first, but then tightening around her as he kissed her back.

Molly held on tight, kissing Sherlock for as long as he would let her. She really was okay with it, with everything, but it was still nice to have him with her again.

One of his hands slid down to her waist, the other up into her hair, and then it was a deeper kiss, the kind that was usually a prelude to something more.

"Oh," Molly said breathlessly when they parted.

Sherlock's hands softened on her, and he looked unsure.

"No," Molly said, and then, "I mean yes." She tightened her grip on him. "Yes, please."

Sherlock bent to kiss her again. "I would like," he said between kisses, "to go to your room."

There wasn't really a reason not to just have sex right there - the book with the condoms in it wasn't far out of reach - but Molly didn't see any reason not to agree to that.

They held hands on the stairs, which was odd, but not unwelcome. Once in Molly's room, Sherlock shut the door behind them. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her with a tenderness she wasn't used to. It made tears prickle behind her eyes.

"I love you," she whispered into his mouth.

"Yes," he said. "Yes." He kissed her again, less tenderly and more passionately, and put his hands under her shirt.

The feel of his hands on her skin made Molly feel as if he were lighting her up from the inside, and then just having his hands resting on her skin wasn't enough. She let go of him and unbuttoned her own shirt as fast as she could before starting on his. She shook her shirt onto the ground and slid her hands under his shirt, leaning forward so she could feel his bare skin against hers.

Sherlock took in an audible breath. His hands just brushed her skin while he unhooked her bra, and they had to be apart for her to take it off while he tossed his shirt behind him.

They came together again, skin on skin, and Sherlock's hands roamed across her back, her stomach, her breasts. Molly clung to him, fingers digging into the almost unnoticeable give of muscles in his back.

"I want you," Molly said, because it still wasn't enough.

"Yes," Sherlock said, and she knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him from the way his voice trembled.

They stepped apart, a few inches that felt like too much space between them, and watched each other take off their trousers and pants. Sherlock was hard, and Molly was wet, more so when he stepped close and put his hand between her legs.

"I want to be inside you," Sherlock said. One of his fingers rested against Molly, just shy of pushing into her.

"Yes," Molly said. "Yes, now, please." She forced herself to step back, to get on the bed.

Sherlock followed her, one of his long arms reaching out to snag a condom from the box on the nightstand. He knelt above her and looked at her, her body too, but mostly meeting her eyes while he tore open the condom and rolled it on.

"It's astounding," he said, in that tone he had when he was surprised by what people found important, "that such a seemingly arbitrary ritual as a wedding can be quite so meaningful."

Molly's laugh turned into a moan when he pushed into her. She wrapped her arms around him, one of her hands coming to rest on the back of his neck. "It's not arbitrary," she said. "It's-" She gasped and lost the thought when he drew back and thrust into her at the very most perfect angle. "We chose each other," she said between the sounds he pushed out of her with every thrust. "I chose you. You chose me. We told everyone about it." She tightened her hold on him, hooked her ankles together around his back. "Not arbitrary."

Sherlock stopped moving and made a thoughtful noise.

"Sherlock." Molly nudged at him with her heel. "Don't stop."

She could see his attention snap back to her. He kissed her, slow and deep, and moved in her the same way.

Molly's eyes fell shut, and she arched her back, trying to get as close to him as possible. Sherlock made a noise, one she knew meant he was enjoying it. He lowered himself down, so he was covering her, as close as they could be, everywhere.

Molly clung to him and kissed him and did what she could to make sure that the grinding twists of his hips were hitting just right. She wanted him, she wanted this, Sherlock, who'd chosen her to be the person he came home to, who'd stayed away until he came down from the high off of being with someone else and then come home to her and taken her to bed.

Their kisses fell away as they got close, when it was too much and they could only breathe into each other's mouths.

Sherlock's mouth slid along her jaw, until his lips were just brushing her ear. "I love you."

Molly said his name on a moan, and he stared right into her eyes while he moved in what he had to know was the exact right way to make her come.

She clung to him all the way through it, and after, too, her arms tight around him and her legs loosening to let him move.

He closed his eyes when he came, and opened them just after, to look down on her with exactly the sort of self-satisfaction she expected when he'd made them both feel like that.

Molly couldn't help it; she laughed, and went on laughing while Sherlock made a face and pulled out of her. She sat up and put her arms around him. "I love you." She kissed his shoulder. "I'm happy."

Sherlock said a flat, "Hm," but she could see the smile in it.

Molly flopped back onto the bed. Sherlock came with her, hand resting on her stomach while he looked at her.

Molly reached out and rested her fingers over his lips, smiling at him. "This was wonderful."

"Mmm." Sherlock's touch was gentle as he removed her hand. He got out of bed, but came back with his phone. He did whatever he was doing with it with only one hand while he stroked the other one through Molly's hair.

It was only a few minutes before he returned to texting with both hands, thumbs flying across the screen. Molly recognized the manic energy of it, and wasn't the least surprised when he leapt out of bed and pulled on his clothing with graceful, efficient motions.

"Case?" she asked.

"Yes." Sherlock put his phone in his pocket. "Could be an interesting one." His eyes were practically shining with it. He took two swift steps across the room and bent down to give Molly a kiss. "You're not upset."

It wasn't a question, but Molly answered him anyway. "No. Remember to take off your ring if it's going to be gruesome or get in the way of people talking to you."

Sherlock kissed her again, lingering this time, before he all but bounded out of her room and down the stairs, calling out, "I'll text if I need you at Barts," on his way.

Molly laughed at the absurdity of her life, of their life, at the way she was happier than she ever could have imagined. She had to get out of bed to get her phone, but she got back in it before texting Sherlock.

He texted back only a few seconds later.

I love you too.  
SH


End file.
